Saturday, 24 September 2011

Submitted by Fiona Beal
One of the things I love doing with a class is writing poetry. The students come up with the most interesting ideas and words. Playing with words always gives me a thrill. There are so many free interactive sites available that can make the teacher’s task even easier, and the learners experience more memorable.

This is a really great poetry site but it can be used for so many other subjects as well. If you scroll down on the left you can preview some of the templates with samples. Students fill in the blanks with their own content and click “Create”.

For example, here is one of their poem outlines:

2. Giggle Poetryhttp://www.gigglepoetry.com/index.aspx
Giggle poetry is an award-winning poetry website with many different features, one of which allows students to fill in the missing words at the end of lines of poetry.This site is great for the younger students.

I have referred to this site before in my post on 10 creative writing sites, but I love using it for poetry writing as well. It is also a great way to teach the different parts of speech and how they fit into the poem. The students start off by choosing a picture as a background that will suit the mood of the poem.

In this online tool, primary school students can select shapes from four different themes namely nature, school, sports, and celebrations. Within these themes, 19 different shapes are included. What I like about Read Write Web’s poetry sites is they include a lot of lesson ideas.

An acrostic poem uses the letters in a word to begin each line of the poem. All lines of the poem relate to or describe the main topic word. In this interactive Read Write Web site you can choose your words.

This site takes you through four types of poetry in an engaging way. Cinquain, haiku, limerick and free verse. I find that the students love it because it teaches you about the type of poem in a fun noisy machine type of manner, and then helps you make your own.

This is quite an unusual but nevertheless inspiring application. First you choose your topic. e.g. books. A number of words appear on the page. Then you choose your photos. This is certainly something different that a teacher can develop.

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Have you ever wondered how to get the reluctant writers in your class enthusiastic about writing? Nowadays with all the wonderful free applications available on the web a teacher doesn’t have to stress about this any more. (Please note that there is a link to a follow up post with more story starter sites under point 11 below.)

1. Wallwisher

This is an idea I tried last year. Open a wallwisher page (http://wallwisher.com) and ask the class to think of a good start to story. There are always those students who rise to the occasion and add their bit. Of course there are those who just sit and think during the whole exercise. Then, when everyone has added their ideas, let everyone choose one of the ideas and start writing! This usually works well.

This site supports Key Stage 1. You choose the type of clothes, hair and skin colour that you want your character to have. Then you type on the notepad a sentence about your character. You can then click on the Print button at the top of the screen and your character and the sentence will be printed. The idea is to show it to the teacher and talk about who you have created.

8. Storyplant from the BBC

This will really appeal to the younger learner. A story guide takes one on a fascinating journey and helps the student to develop their story.

We have all heard of the UNICEF Children's Rights. This is such a topical subject and it is worth getting your class to learn more about children's rights around the world. This is one of the IEARN projects that Omashani Naidoo, the Operations Manager at SchoolNet South Africa has brought to my attention.
Omashani says, "My friend Annie Flore is a coordinator of this project. This would really be a wonderful opportunity for SA learners to give their point of view and let other countries learn first-hand about our vast experiences in SA."

Monday, 19 September 2011

Written by Fiona Beal
These days there are many wonderful, free Web 2.0 interactive creative writing applications to use with your learners. What I like about these applications is the fact that even the reluctant writers get involved quite easily. The use of these Web 2 tools also open the door to many advantages. For example, stories can be shared with parents instead of being lost in a school classwork book or on a piece of paper. They can also be shared with classes around the world if they are embedded on a blog or wiki. The writing process which is so important in writing can easily be incorporated into the lessons.

A circle story is a great way to use the writing process (write first draft – edit - write final draft) in class and it helps the reluctant writer or the writer lacking in confidence to feel part of the process. A great application to use is Etherpad. Notice that the web address has an ‘i’ before etherpad.

When I do circle stories in my computer class I divide the class into groups of four with each person in the group starting their own story. You’ll notice that ‘pad’ in Etherpad is given a code. Before I start I create all the pad and write down these codes so that the students have easy access.

Please note that there are other Web 2.0 applications similar to Etherpad, such as Primary Pad.

I love using Story Jumper in class because it enables you as a teacher to add your whole class and allocate them passwords and easy access. The application also provides a great selection of backgrounds, characters, props, text boxes and fonts for the students to choose from.

This application has to be one of my favourites! Like Storyjumper it offers an on-line story book for students to create from scratch. I found that even the students who are reluctant writer enjoy this programme because you start with the art. Once again you can create easy access for a whole class. The starting point is to choose a beautiful piece of art. Once that is done another batch of related art appears. Consequently the students are really helped to chose their story line from all the inspirational art.

This is a free online writing programme which is great for the younger learners.

The themes are fairly limited but the younger learner love wild animals so this is no deterrent. The end result is a e-book. The application allows you to send an email link to whoever you would like to read your book.

This a kid-friendly, intuitive application where students can create fairy tales, realistic fiction etc. using illustrations and writing for characters, setting, and plot. I haven’t yet used this application but I would love to try it out.

I have discovered that the older students love using sites that can include a photo of themselves. In these photo fun sites they can choose pictures that can tell a story, and then write about the picture.

What I like about this site is the way it provides a drag-n-drop feature which lists words that can be used. This helps the reluctant writers a great deal.The enthusiastic writers can choose the freestyle section. A selection of photos are provided for the background. I usually ask the students to create poems when using piclits.com

If you are wanting your students to create a novel this site offers potential. It has workbooks that one can download for the students to use. The opening blurb says, “Inside each workbook, you'll find worksheets and activities that will spark your imagination and guide you through your novelling…”

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